Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough is author of popular biographies such as Truman and John Adams, and at 79 years old, he’s still going strong. When asked by Harvard Business Review whether he is ready to retire, McCullough offered some interesting perspective on how he views his work through the American founders’ understanding of the “pursuit of happiness” (HT):
I can’t wait to get out of bed every morning.Continue Reading...

Today, Acton’s Rome office and the world were stunned by what the Dean of the College of Cardinals said was a “bolt out of the blue”: just after midday Benedict XVI informed the public that he would be stepping down as the Catholic Church’s pontiff and one of the world’s preeminent moral and spiritual leaders, effective on February 28. Continue Reading...

The Rev. Robert Sirico offers his thoughts on the announcement this morning from Pope Benedict XVI that he is resigning from the papal office as of February 28.
It is a sobering thought to think that the last time a Pope resigned (Pope Gregory XII in 1415), America had not yet been discovered. Continue Reading...

Full Text of Pope’s Declaration on his Resignation
Vatican Radio
Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said he plans on resigning the papal office on February 28th. Below please find his announcement. Continue Reading...

“We’re becoming like Europe” captures many Americans’ sense that something has changed in American economic life since the Great Recession’s onset in 2008. An economy once characterized by commitments to economic liberty, rule of law, limited government, and personal responsibility appears to be drifting in a distinctly “European” direction. Continue Reading...

Michelle Rhee isn’t afraid of controversy. In 2007 she took the job of chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools, one of the worst districts in the country. Given a free hand by the city’s mayor, she instituted a number of reforms that, while modest and sensible (accountability, standardized testing), were considered “radical” by many residents of D.C. Continue Reading...

As occurrences of preventable diseases increase and the debt deepens, some look to “sin taxes” as an easy to solution to both problems. Thirty-three states have even gone as far as to implement a soda tax in an attempt to curb obesity. Continue Reading...

Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of WORLD Magazine, just listed Samuel Gregg’s Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future in his mid-Winter roundup of books to read. Continue Reading...